Men, it's time we stopped throwing each other under the bus

A few months ago, I bought an iPad for my wife. W had been hinting for a while that she wanted one, and when I say “hinting,” I mean telling me every day to buy her an iPad or she was going to staple my lips as I slept.

And boy was she happy when I presented it to her. For one short moment in time, I was the guy on the white horse in the Old Spice commercials who could do no wrong. Immediately after opening the package, she logged on to Facebook and boasted, “My honey just bought me an iPad! Isn't he the most wonderful, greatest, bla bla bla and best husband ever?”

Naturally, this did not go over well with any of the men in our inner circle of family and friends— The Brotherhood, as I like to call them. In fact, it was my brother-in-law, Sage, who promptly Faceblasted me for going rogue.

What is going rogue, you ask? Going rogue is buying or doing something so wonderful, thoughtful, bla bla bla for your wife, that it causes all the women of the inner circle to blurt to their husbands, “How come you don't buy me no iPad!?”

Indeed, in the few short minutes after W's Faceboast, all the other wives of the inner circle—The Sisterhood—began posting about what lazy, rotten, cheapo bastards their husbands were for not doing the same.

Not that any of the members of our Brotherhood deserved it. They've all purchased excellent, spontaneous gifts in the past. In fact, it was shortly after the iPad debacle that Sage himself went horribly rogue. The little bastard—for no reason other than to express his devotion and bla bla blappreciation—brought his wife, Jessica, a bouquet of flowers accompanied by the following note:

“Dearest Buttercup, you are my sun, and moon, and gag, vomit, hurl. For you, I would climb to the top of the highest retch, sail the roughest bile, because I love you from the bottom of my barf,” all of which Jessica promptly plastered on Facebrag.

Make no mistake. This was a far more serious transgression against The Brotherhood because his gift came from a place of adoration, whereas mine was merely an effort to muzzle my wife so I could play Call of Duty in peace.

What followed was as hilarious as it was tragic. W was in the living room, scrolling through Facegloat on her iPad, when she saw Jessica's post.

“How come you never do anything nice like that for me,” she snorted, holding the still-shimmering iPad in her greedy fingers!

Oh, well, that's how it is with wives, I guess. You and she can be on the terrace of an Italian villa overlooking the Mediterranean Sea and still she'll figure out a way to say “You never take me anywhere” with a straight face.

It's just what married men must deal with and,since we can't change women, the best we can do is stop throwing each other under the bus, because, up to now, the concept of going rogue has been unclear and discombobulated. Therefore, I have taken it upon myself to clarify and, um, combobulate, the rules and definitions of rogueism.

There are three basic ways to go rogue.

The first, and most common, is buying your significant other a spontaneous gift—for no other reason than to express your love and undying bla bla blavotion—and, sure as Herman Cain was dropped on his head as an infant, it's an abomination unto The Brotherhood.

The second example is buying a non-spontaneous gift, you know, during those gift-expectant holidays (birthday, Christmas, etc.), but spending far more money than anyone else in The Brotherhood is spending. For example, if you buy the missus a two-karat diamond for Valentine's Day and the rest are doing chocolate and flowers, you have gone senselessly rogue.

Last, any of those creative and priceless-type gifts—like writing love poems, or having “Happy anniversary, darling,” plastered across the stadium JumboTron, or building a red carpet made of rose petals that lead from the front door to the bedroom, where you'll be waiting in silk boxers and grasping a bottle of baby oil—are especially disagreeable to The Brotherhood, as they require planning, effort and—shoot me now should I ever go the silk-boxers route—passion.

Of course, in a perfect world, no man would ever go rogue against his boys. But we live in the real world, with real women—women with hormones that rage like barbarian marauders across the continent of your marriage—making it sometimes necessary to wander from the herd in order to prevent your lips from being stapled together.

In these instances, just be sure to notify The Brotherhood of your intention to stray. This way, it gives them the opportunity to buy something of equal value, or begin the quarantining process— which is done by dropping their wives' cell phones in the garbage disposal, hacking their social pages and infecting them with some sort of influenza bug that will keep them from leaving the house all week.

So, men, are we all on the same page? Excellent! Now let's all take the Oath of The Brotherhood. Please put your hand on our bible—1001 Fart Jokes— and repeat after me: “We, the proud, brave—yet war-weary—married men of The Brotherhood, do solemnly swear to go rogue only when necessary, to alert The Brotherhood when deviation is unavoidable and to reject Satan—The Old Spice Guy—for it is he who will lead us into the shadow of the valley of the doghouse, so help me Hemingway, amen.